


Identity Crisis

by dreamsofspike



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 15:32:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsofspike/pseuds/dreamsofspike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 300-word drabble for the 20-drabble challenge, for the prompt word "name"...</p>
<p>Castiel isn't really sure when his name stopped feeling like his own...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Identity Crisis

It doesn’t even feel like _him_ anymore.

 

Sometimes, the word sounds strange in his own ears.

 

It’s not as if anyone from home ever calls for him anymore.

 

It’s not as if anyone here ever uses it when they do.

 

Early on, he _demanded_ respect, made threats (he’s regretted, ever since the first night he sat at Dean’s bedside and watched the nightmares steal his sleep) – and the boy’s only response was to defy his every order, disregard his mission, and give him a casual nickname that seems to have stuck.

 

Even the other angels had started calling him Cas, before...

 

Well… _before_.  

 

When he asked about it once, Sam told him it was affection; even back then, Dean saw him as a friend, someone on _their_ side in the whole crazy Apocalypse mess. Sam explained that that’s what humans do, when they get close to someone, when that someone starts to feel like _family_.

 

Secretly, Cas wonders if it wasn’t just a way of telling him how very unintimidating he really was.

 

He knows something the Winchesters aren’t really aware of – and that’s that names have importance… significance… _power_.

 

And he hasn’t had a shred of _that_ , not since the moment Dean Winchester dismissed his name in favor of the one _he_ gave him. It’s as if Dean _claimed_ him in that moment, locked him into an unbreakable bond, because he’s never been able to do anything but love the man ever since. He serves Dean with a dedication that frightens him sometimes, so intense it’s almost blasphemous.

 

He sometimes thinks that Hester was probably right.

 

Perhaps it goes back even farther. Perhaps “Castiel” _really was_ lost the moment he touched the soul of Dean Winchester.

 

It doesn’t matter if it’s true, not really.

 

He’d rather be “Cas”, anyway. 


End file.
